Since I last wrote it has been the Grass Court season – that’s tennis if you’re not sure! I have become a bit of a (watching) tennis addict – especially since I gave up any hope of playing it well enough to satisfy my own rather optimistic desires.
This year saw a greater gap than previously between the French Open, which is played on dusty, dry, crushed red brick, and Wimbledon, which of course is played on beautiful smooth green grass – at least at the start of the tournament. In order to get used to playing on grass there are a number of warm up tournaments around the country and this year the extra week enabled the return of two Nottingham Opens – the East Midlands’ own grass court tournaments – one week for women and another for men. Years ago we used to go to the Nottingham Open when it was just a men’s tournament and we saw teenage appearances by both Murray brothers, Andy Roddick, Leyton Hewitt (he wore very large shorts that made him look even younger) and even Tim Henman.
This year we saw Marcos Baghdatis (who was sadly injured in the semi-finals and unable to finish his match), Gilles Simon, Alexandr Dolgopolov and Sam Querry – all of whom did quite well a week later at Wimbledon as well. British players Kyle Edmund and James Ward were there too. The Nottingham Tennis Centre makes a great thing out of getting local school children in for the day during the championships and letting them enjoy playing tennis as well as watching the experts. It’s a shame that there is no equivalent opportunity for Derbyshire schoolchildren as well – or perhaps there is and I’m unaware of it.
Steve Trower, the plumbing and heating engineer, dropped in on me the other day – you may remember Davina picked up a very small haemorrhage in his eye which proved to be a sign of leukaemia and the practice featured in TV and News features celebrating his successful diagnosis and treatment. In the last nine months he has suffered a relapse but after more prolonged treatment he is back looking ridiculously fit and is starting to work again. It’s good when our successes make such a difference, not only to our patient but also to his family and now to his clients as well.
Keep on bringing in your old spectacles – Vision Aid Overseas really appreciates your help.
